


never regret thy fall

by boykingdom



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Fluff, Love Confessions, M/M, Mythology - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-15
Updated: 2015-03-15
Packaged: 2018-03-18 02:01:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3551885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boykingdom/pseuds/boykingdom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean Winchester doesn't do poetry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	never regret thy fall

i.

This isn’t meant to be poetic.

“You remind me of someone,” Dean says one day. “I feel like I might have read a story about you, once. Or someone like you.”

This piques Castiel’s interest. “Oh?”

“Yeah,” Dean says, suddenly sheepish in his words. He shifts in the leather seat of the Impala and makes a left-hand turn.

This isn’t meant to be poetic.

“Tell me about it,” Cas says, softly. It’s not an order or a demand; it’s a question. He’s giving Dean an out, if he wants it.

There is a long, patient pause.

“It’s a myth. Greek, I think.” Dean isn’t sure why saying this causes heat to rise in his cheeks, but it does. “There was this man and his son, and they were trapped in some maze. So the man worked on building these huge wings made of wax so they could escape, which they did. But the son was too excited and he flew too close to the sun, so his wings melted and he fell into the ocean.”

Another pause. Dean shifts again, changing his grip on the steering wheel. Left-hand turn.

This isn’t meant to be poetic.

He can feel Cas staring at him. He’s probably doing it in that way he always does, too—where he focuses on Dean with overwhelming intensity, as if he’s the only thing worth looking at.

“Icarus,” Cas eventually murmurs.

Dean steals a glance in Cas’ direction, and sure enough, that gaze is as reverent as he’s ever seen it. He all of a sudden feels very breathless.

“What?” he asks, out of anything eloquent to say.

Cas smiles, just a little. He feels it more than he sees it. “Icarus,” Cas says again. “Who you’re thinking of is Icarus.”

This isn’t meant to be poetic.

Dean Winchester doesn’t do poetry.

 

ii.

“What do you know about Greek mythology?”

Sam looks up, tearing his eyes from his laptop. His eyebrows are raised in surprise. “Greek mythology?”

“You know.” Dean waves his hand in the air, gesturing vaguely. “Gods and shit. Zeus. You were into that kind of stuff when you were a kid.”

“Uh, yeah,” Sam agrees, confusion set in his expression. He turns toward Dean in his chair. “Why?”

Dean bites his lip. “You know Icarus?”

“Um, son of Daedalus. They were both trapped in the Labyrinth, and Daedalus built them wings made of feathers and wax, right? But when they escaped, he was so happy to be flying that he flew into the sun, and his wings melted, and then he fell into the ocean.” Sam runs a hand through his hair. “Once again, why?”

“No reason,” Dean shrugs.

Sam looks a little worried but mostly perplexed. He turns back to his research. Dean continues to sit opposite him, studying the grain of the wooden table and pondering what little he knows.

A few minutes pass before Dean asks, “Do you think it was worth it?”

Sam shuts the laptop.

“Okay, what are you talking about?”

“I mean, he fell, but he flew first. He was so happy for those first few moments. Was it worth the fall?”

“I…” Sam’s mouth is open but no words are coming out, like he doesn’t know what to say. “I mean, I don’t know, Dean. I guess it depends. Is there any point in me asking why again?”

“Not really,” Dean says. And then they fall silent once more.

 

iii.

Castiel appears in their motel room the next day. “Hello, Sam,” he says, and then turns to Dean. “Hello, Dean.”

Dean lets his eyes trace over his form, checking for injury like it’s second nature—probably because it is. “Heya, Cas,” he says.

He looks into Cas’ eyes and doesn’t look away. Cas does the same.

“Oh,” says Sam. This isn’t meant to be poetic.

 

iv.

Life goes on in a series of hunts, diner food, worrying, and endless research. But it’s different from before.

Metaphorically, it feels like the tide is receding, being pulled in far too quickly. A tsunami is coming, and Dean is just holding his breath and bracing himself for the inevitable moment that it hits and he drowns.

There’s an odd, crackling electricity in the room every time Cas enters it. The air is too thin and Dean is light-headed with it.

He’s not an idiot. He knows what that means. As much as he would prefer he didn’t.

“Sometimes,” Cas said once, “I feel like I’m trapped.”

Dean just looked at him, listening intently, wishing there were a way to offer comfort without giving anything vital away. Cas was silent for while.

“But sometimes,” he whispered next, “I feel like I’m flying.” He had faced Dean, then, like he was a great puzzle he couldn’t figure out how hard he tried. And for the first time, Dean seemed to really  _see_ Cas—all childlike innocence and wax and feathers.

Dean nodded.  _Please don’t fall,_  he had thought to himself.  _Please don’t._

 

v.

“What’s up with you and Cas?”

Sam says it teasingly, but his expression shows that he’s genuinely worried. Dean doesn’t know what part of that he hates most.

“What do you mean?” he asks gruffly, always in denial. Sam sighs and rolls his eyes.

“You know what I mean,” he says. “I can’t even be in the same room as you two anymore. If you both would just get your heads out of your asses then maybe-“

“Stop,” Dean says firmly. Sam grunts his dissatisfaction, but he does.

Not before, however, muttering under his breath, “Too close to the sun.” Dean chooses not to dwell on it.

 

vi.

It’s a week later that he and Cas are alone again. Dean is lying on the bed, staring at the cracks in the plaster of the ceiling. The mattress under him is hard and probably more than a bit dusty. Cas sits at the table, listening to Dean rant about nothing.

Amidst the meaningless passages that escape Dean’s mouth—mostly dealing with his favorite movies Cas needs to watch, or reminiscing on past hunts he and Sam had worked—he says these words:

“Maybe it would be better if I just say yes to Michael.”

He didn’t even mean to say them. Not really. It was just a thought lurking in the back of his mind, but he had let his guard down enough that they had accidentally slipped through without his permission, and now he can’t take them back.

He freezes, closes his eyes. He doesn’t see Cas’ reaction, but he can feel it in the way the room has suddenly become icy.

“ _Don’t,_ ” Cas seethes, and there’s so much anger there, but mostly a deeply felt hurt, and Dean feels that like a blunt hammer to the chest. “ _Don’t_ say that.”

“Why?” he challenges.

It’s stupid, he knows, but now that the option is out in the open it doesn’t seem absurd.

“ _Why?_ ” Cas growls. He gets from his seat and begins to stalk over to where Dean is lying, but Dean beats him to it by rising to his feet as well.

Sometimes, Dean will forget that Cas is a real angel. That “Cas” is actually “Castiel,” and that he is unfathomable and bigger than Dean could ever perceive. Looking at the expression on Castiel’s face, this is not one of those times.

Dean suddenly feels very, very small.

“Yeah,” he says, weaker this time. “Why?”

Cas looks at him with something akin to disbelief, but he’s breathing deeply and seems to be calming down. “Because…” he frowns, becoming increasingly frustrated. “Because…”

The tension in the air is tangible. Cas continues to struggle for words, and Dean waits, but Cas is like a magnet and he’s being drawn in, and every nerve in his body sparks like live wire and-

 

vii.

It gets to be too much. Just too much.

He leaps, headfirst, into the oncoming wave.

“Can I ask you a question, Cas?”

“Of course.”

 

viii.

“What am I to you?” Dean asks, a hint of desperation in his voice. Cas takes a second to digest the question, and then just shakes his head, eyes wide. He almost looks scared.

“I don’t know,” he confesses, pained. “I just don’t know.”

Dean takes a step forward, slowly, imploring. “What don’t you know?”

“I…” Cas trails off. He looks down at his shoes.

For a moment, only the sound of their breathing fills the air.

“You’re my wings,” Cas whispers. It’s quiet enough that Dean wouldn’t have even been able to hear it if he were standing just a few feet back.

He draws in a breath.

“What do you mean?” he tries to keep his voice from trembling, from giving away the alarming rate of his heart.

Cas closes his eyes. He speaks in stanzas, like his words are poetry. “If I am Icarus…” he says, “then you are my wings.

“But that’s not all you are.

“You are my wings, yes, but you are also my sun. You are also my ocean.

“You’re  _everything._ ”

Dean is holding his breath, and his heart feels like it’s trying to beat up and out of his throat.  He chews lightly on the inside of his cheek and wills his hands to stop shaking, just stop  _fucking shaking._

“Do you know what that means?” he asks, voice thick with emotion.

Cas looks up, then, and his eyes are watering.  _“No,_ ” he says. “Tell me what it means.  _Please._ ”

Dean Winchester doesn’t do poetry.

He leans forward and kisses him.

 

ix.

_“Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew._

_[…] I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,_

_but just coming to the end of his triumph.”_

_-_ Jack Gilbert

Cas makes the most painful little keening noise the moment their lips meet. Or maybe that was Dean. He doesn’t know. It doesn’t matter. He’s wanted this for far too long to let it matter.

Cas kisses with his entire body, tugging at Dean like he wants to feel every inch of him against every inch of himself. Like he hates every gap that has ever existed between their bodies.

Dean is more than willing to let himself be pulled forward, and Cas is more than willing to let Dean’s tongue into his mouth once he asks permission.

“I love you,” Cas breathes between kisses, cradling Dean’s face. He says it as if it’s a revelation, and Dean feels the declaration run through him, wash him like a blessing. “I love you.” Kiss. “I love you.” Kiss. “I love you. I love you.”

“ _Cas,”_ Dean chokes, nearly sobbing.

“I love you. I had no idea.”

Dean lets out a small laugh, and it’s broken and wrecked, but it is well and truly happy.

“Are you flying, Icarus?” he says, pressing his nose into the juncture where Cas’ neck meets his shoulders, closing his eyes and basking in this newfound permission to do so.

“Yes,” Cas breathes, sounding surprised. “I think I am.”

“Well then,” says Dean, “I’ll be sure to catch you.”

 

x.

This isn’t meant to be poetic.

“The Greeks would have loved you.”

“Hm?”

“The Greeks,” says Cas. “They would have loved you. You are so much like their heroes, like their tragedies. They could have learned so many things from you. They’d want to.”

They’re in bed, warm and surrounded by each other, Cas’ head pillowed on his chest.

 Dean smiles. He doubts that the Greeks would have looked at him twice, but it’s a pretty idea. Poetic.

This isn’t meant to be poetic.

“They would have loved you, too,” Dean says. “The philosophers, I mean. They probably would have studied you.”

“Oh, they did,” Cas says.

Dean laughs.

“I love you,” he says.

It’s the first time he’s said it to anyone outside his family, but the rightness of it is very sudden. The words fit in his mouth like they belong there, and like they belong only to Castiel.

Cas sits up to kiss him.

 

xi.

_“Never regret thy fall,_  
_O Icarus of the fearless flight_  
_For the greatest tragedy of them all_  
_Is never to feel the burning light.”_

_-_ Oscar Wilde

(This has never been meant to be poetic.)

 


End file.
